Maybe you recall the moment in Les Misérables when Fantine chops off all her hair? The destitute young mother sells her long locks, then her teeth (a detail often excluded from child-friendly adaptations) before she actually is eventually forced into prostitution. It would be nice to imagine that her experience was will no longer a real possibility, that the business of human hair had gone the way in the guillotine – however, it’s booming. The current marketplace for extensions made from real human hair is growing in an incredible rate. In 2013, £42.8 million worth of human hair was imported in the UK, padded by helping cover their a little bit of animal hair. That’s one thousand metric tons and, end to finish, almost 80 million miles of hair, or maybe you want, two million heads of 50cm long hair. And our hair industry pales when compared with that of the US.

Two questions spring in your thoughts: first, who is supplying this hair and, secondly, who in the world is buying it? Unsurprisingly, both sides of your market are cagey. Nobody desires to admit precisely where they are importing hair from and girls with extensions like to pretend their brazilian hair could be the own. Websites selling human hair will occasionally explain how the locks come from religious tonsure ceremonies in India, where women willingly swap hair in return to get a blessing. At Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in southern India, tonsuring is customary and it’s just about the most-visited holy sites on earth, so there’s a good amount of hair to flog.

It has been described as ‘happy hair’ – and it’s certainly an acceptable story to share with your client as you glue another woman’s dead hair to her scalp. But countries like Russia, China, Ukraine, Peru and Brazil also export large amounts of hair, so where’s that from? The reality behind this hair is probably a grim one. There are actually reports of female prisoners and girls in labour camps being compelled to shave their heads so those who are in charge can sell it off. Even if the women aren’t coerced, no one can ensure that the hair’s original owner received a decent – or any – price.

It’s a strange anomaly in the world where we’re all enthusiastic about fair trade and ethical sourcing: nobody seems in any way bothered concerning the origins of their extra hair. Then again, the current market is difficult to regulate as well as the supply chain is convoluted. Bundles of hair can pass through many different countries, which makes it difficult to keep tabs on. Then your branding can be purchased in: Chinese hair is marketed as Brazilian, Indian as European. The reality that some websites won’t disclose where their hair arises from is significant. Hair is sourced ‘all over eastern Europe’, says Kelly Reynolds, from Lush Hair Extensions, but ‘we would not know specifically’. A few ‘ethical’ extension companies exist, but typically, the client just doesn’t would like to know in which the hair is harvested. Within the FAQ sections of human hair websites, most queries are things such as ‘How do you care for it’ or ‘How long can it last?’ as an alternative to ‘Whose hair would it be anyway?’ One profoundly sinister website selling ‘virgin Russian hair’ boasts that this hair ‘has been grown within the cold Siberian regions and contains never been chemically treated’. Another site details how to distinguish human and artificial hair: ‘Human hair will consider ash. It will smell foul. When burning, a persons hair can have white smoke. Synthetic hair will certainly be a sticky ball after burning.’ As well as not melting, human hair styles better. Accept no imitations, ladies.

The most expensive choice is blonde European hair, a packet of which can fetch a lot more than £1,000. So who buys this? Well, Beyoncé for one. Her hair collection was once estimated being worth $1 million. Along with the Kardashians have recently launched an array of extensions underneath the name ‘Hair Kouture’, designed to give you that ‘long hair don’t care attitude’.

Near where I reside in London, there are many of shops selling all kinds of wigs, weaves and extensions. The signs outside advertise ‘virgin hair’ (that is hair that hasn’t been treated, as opposed to hair from virgins). Nearby, a neighborhood hairdresser does a roaring trade in stitching bundles of hair to the heads of females wanting to 33dexjpky like cast members from The Only Way Is Essex. My own, personal hairdresser tells me she has middle-aged, middle-class women seeking extensions to ensure they are look ‘more like Kate Middleton’. She even suspects Kate might have used extensions, and that is a tabloid story waiting to happen: ‘Kate wears my hair!’

Human hair can be a precious commodity because it will take time to increase and artificial substitutes are believed inferior. You can find women prepared to buy and there are women ready to sell, but given the size of the market it’s time we learned where it’s all from and who benefits. Fantine could have been fictional, but her reality still exists, now over a billion-dollar global scale.